Mt. St. Helens 30 years ago today

[92 white 0650]

Anyone get trapped in the ash fallout 30 years ago?

We were taking our first flight in an airplane we had just bought 3 days ago. Flying from Spokane to Pullman Sunday morning, we saw "this huge storm" coming. Since we were not talking to ATC, we had no idea the mountain had blown. But we landed in Pullman, did our business and hustled back to Spokane still thinking an hellacious storm was brewing. Even knowing what it was when we got back, it was still very strange the way it got dark at 3 PM and "snow" started falling.

Piles of ash blew around like fine dust destroying engines & shutting down all of Eastern WA and Norther ID. Spent 3 days holed up in the apartment with my new GF. I liked that part. :wink:

We thought it was going to change our lives for a very long time, but we got thru it in fairly short order.

 

[Big Brown]

I lived in Olympia when the eruption occured. All i know it was dark at around 8am when i was walking to school. When i got to school we had to stay in there for like half a day until things cleared up. After that we had like 2 weeks of no school but made it all up in June.:frown:

 

[queenlives]

i was up in (tillamook?) oregon salmon fishing with my father when we heard the explosion. over the next few days the particulates made their way across the state and by the time i began my drive back to california, things were pretty gray and our headlights were on all of the time.

 

[NSX-Tuner]

I remember back then, one early morning driving in the BA (that's right, San Jose, CA) to work in what seemed like fog. However, when I turned on my wipers, I was surprised to see how the fog seemed to be falling off of the wiper blades.

Then I realized that the ash cloud had made its way all the way down to Northern Calif. It was very strange and eerie for here for several days.

I could only imagine how much worse it was furthur north.

 

[Da Hapa]

I can not believe that was 3 decades ago.